


All Wrong

by Setkia



Series: My Marvel Stories [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist!Steve, Flashbacks, Homophobic Language, M/M, PTSD, Slightly AUish, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 21:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11953290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setkia/pseuds/Setkia
Summary: His memories are so muddled, he justcan’tsome days so he forgets the unfamiliar and lets himself retrace patterns he can repeat in his sleep, but when he looks down the eyes are all wrong, the way his face is just doesn’t sit right-





	All Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Captain America, had this one-shot kinda linger cause I LOVE artist!Steve, and the idea of those boys pining since the 1940s. It's like ... lightly implied slash, if anything, could almost be read as platonic. I wanted to deal with the PTSD aspect for Steve, that he's a war veteran, that the loss of his best friend is still very ripe, yet lots of time has passed and the world has progressed without him, so he struggles with his PTSD and survivor's guilt, while also having to adjust to this new century, and also try to maintain a hold of who he's always been.

Steve squints and presses the graphite to the page, pulling his knees closer to himself. The position reminds him of Brooklyn, of curling into himself to keep _his_ eyes off the picture he was drawing. It reminds him of shielding his art from prying eyes that would surely decode the secret message hidden inside the strokes and the images of lead, the secrets that gave away his closest held weakness.

It made sense, in a way, Steve supposes on reflection, that the boy with the heart arrhythmia, the eye stigma, and the weak arches among other things, would surely be so defective that more than physical parasites, a mental sickness resided inside his mind. Steve knows _now_ that it isn’t a bad thing, but before … God, he was terrified that one day, _he’d_ look at him and just know, and leave.

Steve shakes off the memories and instead lets his hand trace the familiar curves and patterns onto the paper.

The way his eyes crinkled when he was happy; the curve of his lips when he smirked; there was always a gleam in his eyes like he knew a secret and he was only going to share it with Steve. His eyebrow would arch in a particular way when he laughed and his hair would fall just so and his teeth were slightly crooked and Steve knows there was a chipped tooth-

No. This isn’t right.

Staring down at the image in front of him, Steve can tell it’s all wrong. His eyes didn’t crinkle that way, his lips didn’t curve nearly that much, his eyebrows weren’t always so- or were they?

Steve rubs a hand over his face and breathes deeply.

He’s glad he is alone in the Tower, Tony was the last to leave and now, as far as anyone else is concerned, Steve is just putting in extra hours. More training, more practice, to make sure he’s agile and good to go because being frozen for so long did things to him and he’s going through some physical therapy and he’s getting better. They don’t need to know that on nights like these, when Steve stays late into the night, he’s on the floor in the gym, drawing memories of a life so far away, and yet so close to him.

He stares down at the paper and frowns. It’s all wrong, everything is _wrong_ , nothing is right …

Steve rips out the page and starts again.

_Remember. It wasn’t that long ago that you saw him._

Snow.

The train.

Wide eyes with so much fear, yet somehow so much trust.

Trust that he would catch him.

A phantom touch against his palm.

And then nothing.

Silent screams.

Steve shakes his head.

It feels like moments ago, just yesterday, an open and fresh wound, but the place he’s sitting in, on the floor of the Avengers’ HQ, is proof enough that it’s been years, decades since it’s happened. His memories are so muddled, he just _can’t_ some days so he forgets the unfamiliar and lets himself retrace patterns he can repeat in his sleep, but when he looks down the eyes are all wrong, the way his face is just doesn’t sit right-

_“Let’s hear it for Captain America!”_

Steve can’t stand to look at it.

He throws the sketchbook away and it falls into a sea of discarded photos, imperfect replicas of him; so close, but never quite right. He pulls himself onto his knees and stares at the fake smiles looking up at him.

His hands go to the ground to support him and he can see his arm, his bulging arm with all its muscle and all its strength.

What good is it if he can’t help people? What use is the serum if he can’t save them?

What good is he if he can’t save _him_?

It’s when the tear hits the paper that he realizes he’s crying. It’s silent. He can’t even feel his ribs shaking, can’t feel the tremble that he’s sure is there, somewhere. Steve can remember the years it took to master the art of crying mutely.

He couldn’t make him worry, he couldn’t make Ma worry, he couldn’t burden people with his problems. He learned how to stifle it, to keep quiet when he thought Ma was getting sicker, when the bullies called him “fag”, and eventually, he stopped altogether. It’s been years since he’s cried.

Though many things have changed, the years, his appearance, the century, tears still taste bitter.

Steve’s legs give out and he curls inward.

He can’t move.

It’s just like the train; numb; frozen. The world is deafeningly silent, it seems to have stopped, but he knows it hasn’t, not really.

The crash, the quiet, the burn of the cold, but there was no fear when he hit the ice. Only relief. He couldn’t imagine having to be without him and it’s the same now, though many things have kept him distracted, he still can’t quite fathom it.

When he went down in the Arctic he knew death was imminent, but it felt almost like coming home. He knew he’d see him and they’d both laugh and it’d be like nothing had happened; like he hadn’t let go and he hadn’t fallen and it was all okay. The ice meant there was no more pain, no more suffering, no more weight of the title of “Captain America”.

Tasting his tears, he can’t help but want to smile just a bit.

He was starting to think his humanity had melted away with the ice.

How can he call himself his friend if he can’t even remember his face?

His hands are smudged with graphite, with lead, with ink and so much else. The floor is a sea of blurry memories, never sharp, never clear.

_“Punk.”_

How’d he say it? What did he look like when he said it?

“Jerk,” Steve mumbles, tasting his tears. They just won’t stop coming. “Jerk,” he mutters again, shaking. “End of the line, you said. Til the end of the line … _jerk_. I’m at the end of the line. So where are you?”

He hates it. He’s been to his own museum, has seen the display, the little section about _them_ , and he can never tell. He can’t correct them, he doesn’t know if anything is wrong, he doesn’t know if anything is _right_. His body is shaking, he’s trembling, it’s dark and cold and if he just closes his eyes-

“Thought you could do this all day.”

Steve opens his eyes and the world comes to him slowly. His eyes adjust quickly, but it takes him a while to process. The words are whispered into his right ear. A curtain of dark hair is in front of him, he can see a face, dirty, grimy. There’s sweat and the person is breathing hard and they smell horrible and the eyes … the eyes are-

“Am I taller than you again?”

The voice is rough, harsh, but there’s something familiar about it.

Steve holds himself up on his shoulder.

Everything he sees contradicts his thoughts. The hair, the outfit that smells faintly of blood, the arm, so metallic, so mechanical, and _cold_ , but-

“B … Bucky?” he croaks out, barely able to believe it.

The man smiles, his eyes crinkle just the right way, his lips curve to the perfect angle, his tooth is slightly chipped and then-

“Punk.”

Ah.

That’s how he said it.


End file.
